Kingdom Hearts Index

Kingdom Hearts Review

Story (9/10)Just because it appears to be a ''kiddie'' Disney game, DON'T
judge it just yet! The plot is actually pretty serious and can pull even the
not-so-young gamers in. I won't spoil anything, not even the beginning of the
game, but anyway getting to the point, all I'll say is that it starts out a bit
slow, but as the game progresses, things start getting really interesting. It's
a fairly straightforward game so you can't really get lost unless you start
doing lots of side-quests at once and forget where you're supposed to be going.
Well, since I said I wouldn't spoil anything, I can't really say much more than
the fact that the story is good, so moving on...

Graphics
(9/10)Square's done it again! The CG cinemas in this game are simply
amazing! Even though there's not that many of them, they look just as good as
FFX's FMV sequences! The in-game graphics are also fairly detailed. The
characters move fluidly, their lips actually move with their voices, the Disney
characters resemble their 2D counterparts VERY well in 3D, the environments,
although ''cartoony'' in appearance (thankfully not cell-style though, like far
TOO many games these days), show little hints of 3D special effects, like
shadows and faint reflections in watery and polished surfaces. The different
worlds are also very unique, and each Disney world has a familiar feel to it
reminiscent of the movies that inspired them. And like all Squaresoft games with
summon magic, the summoning sequences look stunning and unique and obviously had
quite a bit of effort put into them. Also, there surprisingly isn't much
slowdown in the gameplay even though the game is fully polygonal, providing a
fluid-moving, action-packed adventure, even with the occasional battle that can
have up to 10-15 enemies on screen at once.

Controls
(9/10)Other than the fact that the menu is controlled either by the
d-pad or right analog stick, I thought the controls weren't as bad as people
make them seem. The gameplay, even though there's lots of button mashing, is
still fun and fast paced like an action/adventure game should be. Also, being
able to map spells to the L1 menu for quick usage was a nice feature. As for the
camera problem people keep complaining about, I didn't think it was bad at all.
It's much easier to cope with than the camera problems in the old school
Resident Evil games since you can just rotate the camera to suit the situation
if you need to. And besides, you have to admit that almost every
action/adventure game uses some kind of camera scheme almost exactly like
Kingdom Hearts. So if you complain about this camera, you complain about almost
every other action/adventure game's camera systems too.

Sound
(10/10)Square definitely did their homework in this department. All of
the Disney characters voices in the game are done by their original voice actors
and the remaining characters are done, literally, by an all star cast.
Practically the entire cast of characters in this game are actors/actresses of
some sort and have previous acting experience, so the voice acting in this game
is actually really good. The music in the game's various worlds also has little
tidbits of the original Disney music to recreate the feel of actually being in
that world. Also, the best part about the sound in this game, in my opinion
anyway, is that Utada Hikaru (aka Hikki), my favorite jpop singer, sings the
theme song, which happens to be the last track of her most recent album
(although the English version of ''Hikari (Light)'' was renamed ''Simple and
Clean'' when she rewrote the song for the English version of Kingdom Hearts).
This is a little off topic, but, she's cute don't you think? *smile* I can't
wait for her new English album to come out next year. I mean she's American
anyway so she should do pretty well, she can obviously sing well in English.
Yeah, that's way off topic, anyway, back to the review...

Replayability (6/10)Not much really, unless you want to play
again on Expert just for the hell of it. Considering that there's actually a
pretty good amount of side-quests in this game to keep occupied with, you might
not want to have to replay it unless you really screwed up bad and need to. So
there's pretty much no need to replay this game unless you really want to.

Fun Factor (10/10)This is definitely a fun game! To tell you
the truth, I didn't think it was going to end up being as good as it turned out
to be. When I first saw the previews for it in PSM (PlayStation Magazine for all
you people who don't know) way back then, I thought the idea of Squaresoft and
Disney teaming up would to make a game was kind of stupid, so I pretty much
thought the game would suck. I originally bought it only because of the FF
characters in it and that Hikki sings the theme song, but the game actually
turned out being good and actually worth my money. Kudos to Squaresoft for such
a surprisingly good game!

My Overall Impression (9/10)Good
story, graphics, music, voice acting, and just so much fun! It may not be
perfect, but hey, what is? Nothing's perfect. All I know for sure is that this
game is way better than I expected it to be and that it's worth buying.

Final Score: 62/70 = 89% = 8.9/10

Buy or Rent? Well, I'd say GET
OUT THERE AND BUY IT IF YOU HAVEN'T ALREADY!!! Great game, well worth the
trouble getting.